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I've mentioned this before: the market believes that, once the problems in Miami become undeniable, there will be some colossally expensive engineering megaproj

I've mentioned this before: the market believes that, once the problems in Miami become undeniable, there will be some colossally expensive engineering megaproject to fix it on the taxpayer's dime. And depressingly, the market is probably right, because to not do this would mean having to abandon a major city-- something that has basically never happened in the modern word, apart from disasters like Chernobyl-- and admitting that climate change is real. So in a decade or two look forward to what amounts to a huge bailout and upward wealth transfer to Miami real estate barons.

usefulcat 8y ago
It's probably a lot simpler than that. Most of the debt held by banks is probably due to be repaid in <= 30 years. If they'll still make such a loan today then it's reasonable to infer that they don't think property values are likely to go down significantly over that time period. From their perspective, any kind of government bailout would be great, but certainly can't be counted on. This is especially true of engineering projects, where physical reality puts hard limits on what is and is not possible before even considering costs. Printing money a la quantitative easing is trivial compared to building a giant seawall or what have you.